Reserved about Reservations...

Arjun Singh and his cronies are at it again!!
That was quite a stir 3 months ago,wasn't it??Took the politicians by a total surprise!
Who would have thought the student population of India to be so active and spontaneous??
The UPA govt was caught on a wrong foot totally..Frankly speaking,I don't think it was something which came out of the blue at all..These feelings have long been simmering amongst the hearts of countless Open Category students for years now..
It was just the neta log who had their heads buried in the sands until then that hadn't noticed.

I was too young to even remember the Anti-Mandal protestations of the late 80s/early 90s..
But i do remember my parents warning me every now and then while I was growing up,to take studies damn seriously or face the consequences of not getting admitted to a decent college..
I think it started in '95 when my eldest sis' was to get admission for Junior college.Everone was happy that she got 80% in SSC boards,but it was never gonna be enuf for getting into the prestigious Kelkar..Tht was when in first hit me how vulnerable my position in society was..
I remember asking my dad why we didnt have a caste certificate,too..
Knw wht my dad said?
Firstly,we don't belong to the reserved categories..and even if we were, he wud never want me to take help of such crutches to forge my way ahead in life...
Not tht I really needed to worry so much abt getting good marks in school..Being the perennial top-ranking student of my school was a habit for me unlike my elder sisters who weren't as brilliant at mugging as me:)
But still as my parents reminded me constantly..Better be safe than sorry..
The next 4 years,Reservations was a constant topic of discussion amongst my folks..
It was in '99 wen this quota system hit me..No sir!!85%wasn't good enuf either now for Kelkar!!
And I,who had never ever set foot out of my suburb alone b4, was to go all the way to Sion in the daily rush of the local trains..Well,things turned out good enuf for me,I guess.
SIES was a pretty good college and I got a chance to widen my horizons a bit..The frog had left the well!
But,then again,I had to take Biology,my most hated subject,since there was no chance for a 85% guy like me getting CompSci or Elex..I remeber my Chemistry lab partner getting CS after 1 month of start of classes..why??She was a RC student..
One thing is for sure...i never felt any resentment towards the RC ppl,hell, 2 of my best frenz are from RC..And i came to know of this fact during the junior coll admissions..why so late??Until then noone ever bothered to ask you ur caste b4 becoming freinds wth u...
So,i was still not worried and didn't have any probs as long as I was getting along fine myself..
Only when i started Junior college I encountered ppl asking u ur percentage,Bio/Non-bio status,and if u quoted my combination..i always got a response.."Duh,u r from Open category!!"
I was miffed ..some of these ppl from RCs looked at me in a patronizing way..some tried to be sympathetic..
The most opinionated I felt abt these quotas was after my HSC results came out..
I had a 289/300 score in PCM and there was no guarantee i wud get a good college AND a good course wth those marks!
The brochure for Engg admissions showed the cutoff marks for past year..and there i saw a person from NT category getting CompSci at 146/300.This was for VGTI,the most coveted engg coll for the likes of me at the time..How can one not b shocked??

Well,in the end,it appears I was worried abt nuthin..I got into the last available OC merit seat in TSEC,Elex. See..?If u have enuf percentage,u get by somehow..
But wht abt those ppl who get those opportunities when others far deserving are still languishin behind?? I was lucky,I have seen many others who have not been..

This is when u talk abt the Junior college and graduate course admissions...
The reason for the discontent now is 'coz the UPA govt has decided to extend these quotas to the PG courses too..Well,its more like extending the quotas for OBCs(27%!!!)..The reservations for SC/STs were there all along..

People talk abt meritocracy,right to equality and such things when they oppose the reservations.
Merit does suffer a lot when u bring in people wth not even 50% marks in specialized courses like Medical and Engg..After all who wants to trust their well-being and health in the hands of MDs and surgeons who barely got thru their graduate course..??

But,I never felt the need to abolish quota system outright..Even when i was the affected party...
The rampant discrimination based on caste sytem prevalent in India had to be tackled at the outset of our Independence..The founders of our modern society were well aware of this problem..After all,who can forget the Mahad satyagraha in '27 by Ambedkar for something as basic as right to drinking water??No wonder,there were quotas for the backward castes when he helped draft the Constitution...Where did they err,then??Or did they??

I don't think thy erred in the thinking,it all went wrong in the implementation..Nehru was so enthusiatic abt buiding a modern India ready to take on the world,he forayed into too many things at the same time..granted it was necessary and we won't b able to understand things as thy were 60 yrs back..but the basic thing like Education for all was not given proper attention..
This is where we went wrong,in building the next generation Indians...

Quotas were a necessity back then..what was needed alongside was a massive effort by the politicians to start changing the mindset of the masses..o/w the higher castes wud always resent the lower castes..quotas or no quotas..But i dont think it happened the way it shud have..And the result is wht we see today..60 years later we r saying enuf of these quotas..Does tht mean all those who could have benefitted from them have??Thts not the case,is it?We still find many of these backward castes ppl denied basic human rights in a huge part of our country...
We can't abolish quota system yet..And thts wht every agitator in todays AntiReservations protests agrees to,too..
Why r thy protesting then??

Because,the quotas will now be applicable to even the Creamy layer of the OBCs..
Why do the Creamy Layer get the benefits which they definitely dont need??
Are we going to still give these sons and daughters of 'rich businessmen,politicians,doctors,lawyers,govt officers,enggs ,etc' a chance to get admissions in prestigious institutions and then look at OC students who had to actually work hard for their seat, in a patronizing and superior way??
Where's the sense in that??They have had the best primary and secondary schooling which incidentally,lower middle class OC students haven't..they have got the chance to get into the best institutes for graduate courses,where they already have gotten into 'coz of quotas and now they want reservations for PG courses too??Why??So they can party all nights at weekends wthout having to worry abt slogging like the commoners to get into the IIMs??

Not all of them fall into the above category..some rather many of them do work hard like others and think tht these quotas will be an added advantage,a fall back measure if u say..
But where is the discrimination now??Haven't they already gotten on an equal platform after getting in to graduate courses on the basis of their castes?? Isn't tht the basis behind this quota system?Opportunity to those who may or may not be denied it otherwise by the upper castes..
Isn't this discrimination against the OC students looking to do their PG??

The real benefeciaries of these quotas will be these undeserving candidates from the creamy layer..Come on..be realistic!!How many Suresh babus will be actually there in those quota beneficiaries??Even Suresh a student from BITS didnt need a crutch to take admission into IIM-A..

All tht these politicians have achieved is further dividing the society..They run the risk of totally destroying whtever little has been achieved in name of social equality in the past 60 yrs..
How are they justifying this aberrant increase in OBC quotas??By giving foolish and absurd statements..All they are concerned abt is the votes these OBCs will give them in the next elections..They are least bothered abt agitations going on rt now..since they know we may huff and we may puff..but wen it comes to vote bank politics..we r not even a force to reckon wth..why bother abt the demands of a scattered polity which hardly ever bother to cast their votes on election day???
The politicians of the likes of Ramadoss and Arjun Singh and Moily is a result of our apathy towards governance..

Call me skeptical,call me cynical..but how much ever these students protest-violently or non violently;they r not goin to be heeded...3 months back we saw the doctors being beaten up like dogs..Mr.Manmohan Singh was appalled..3 months later his cabinet quietly rescinds the promise he gave us then abt not including creamy layer in the quotas..The quota proponents vehemently opposed the staggering introduction of the quotas,thy still want in to be implemented in one go(thts a whopping 54% increase,folks!!)...Quality and infrastructure may take a toss!!
Lets see if our PM is able to keep this promise either...

In the meanwhile....start looking for better avenues abroad my friends..there's no future for our country wth the current crop of our netas...